


insert here - a sentiment re: our golden years

by pentaghastly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Jon and the Starks Are Not Related, arya needs a date for a wedding and who you gonna call? that hot guy you kind of want to bone!, fluff????? in MY fics????? it's more likely than you think!, it's a fake dating trope babey!!!!!!!!!!!, jon/sansa and robb/marg only briefly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 01:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18510889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentaghastly/pseuds/pentaghastly
Summary: In retrospect, it’s a terrible idea.“This is a terrible,” Gendry had said to her when she first suggested it, waving his hands emphatically, “terribleidea.”So yeah, maybe he was right. But what’s that thing that assholes always say?Hindsight is twenty-twenty?That, Arya thinks, just might be accurate.(Alternate title,Idiots in Love Fake Date & Swear at Each Other for Five Thousand Words.)





	insert here - a sentiment re: our golden years

**Author's Note:**

> fake dating babeyyyyyyyyy!
> 
> this is pure, self-indulgent fluff. there's literally nothing else to it. i'm so sorry.
> 
> comments/kudos are so cherished! xx

i.

In retrospect, it’s a terrible idea.

“This is a terrible,” Gendry had said to her when she first suggested it, waving his hands emphatically, “ _terrible_ idea.”

(So yeah, maybe he was right. But what’s that thing that assholes always say?

Hindsight is twenty-twenty?

That, Arya thinks, just might be accurate.)

 

ii.

 

It’s not her fault that she doesn’t have a boyfriend – or, actually, it _is_ her fault that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, but it’s her fault in the sense that she doesn’t fucking want a boyfriend and no one can force Arya Stark to do anything that she doesn’t want to do.

She doesn’t want a boyfriend, but then her mother had been getting on her back in the days leading up to Robb and Margie’s wedding, and she’d just…snapped.

“Sansa is going with Jon,” her mother had said, as if Arya needed to be reminded of that vomit-worthy fact. “Bran with Meera, Rickon with Shireen – are you _really_ sure that there’s no nice boy that you want to bring along with you, love? Not that you need a boy to enjoy yourself, but are you sure that you’ll be okay on your own?”

She’d hated the pity in her mother’s face. She’d hated the way that, as a fully-grown woman of eighteen, her entire worth was being based around the fact that she didn’t have a male escort to her brother’s wedding. She also hated the fact that her mother assumed that it would be a _boy_ joining her, because Arya Stark might be particular about a lot of things but the gender of her partner? Not one of them.

Still, she knows her mother doesn’t mean anything by it. She knows her mother is just being her mother, overly-involved in every aspect of her life, but it still annoys her that everyone in her family seems to be of the opinion that she’ll have a mental breakdown if she has to face a celebration of love without a love of her own by her side.

Arya Stark doesn’t do mental breakdowns. Arya Stark functions just fine on her own, thank you very much, and she definitely doesn’t need a boy with her in order for her night to feel as though it has value.

Except her mom kind of has a point: it’ll be fucking miserable alone.

It’ll be _boring_.

(Arya doesn’t do boring.)

“I won’t be alone. I’m bringing Gendry,” she says, before she can censor herself and say literally anything else. “You know, Gendry Waters?”

Her mother grins, slow and mischievous, and Arya thinks – _fuck_. She’s just got herself into something far more complicated than a date to Robb’s wedding.

“You and Gendry make a _darling_ couple.” 

_Fuck._

“Mom, I didn’t mean –” 

“I’ve been waiting for the two of you to get together for ages! He seems to make you very happy, love.”

She wants to tell her mother that she’s misunderstood. She wants to tell her that Gendry will be coming as a friend, nothing more, and that they’ve literally never done anything resembling what people in a relationship do and that they don’t have any plans to, thank you very much. She wants to tell her mother that Gendry Waters is not, in any way, shape, or form, her boyfriend.

Arya wants to tell her mother all of that, but the thing is – the thing is that her mum looks so happy, a little bit like she might burst into tears at any given moment. The wedding planning has been immensely stressful, she knows, and her mum hasn’t even complained about it once, even when Arya had grumbled about being asked to assist in the most menial of tasks. Catelyn Stark has devoted her entire life to them and now, for the first time in a long time, she looks as though a weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

It’s honestly a little bit offensive, but it’s also her _mum_. So Arya wants to tell her mom everything but instead she doesn’t, and that’s probably her first mistake.

“He does,” she says, and she means it. “He makes me very happy.”

Saying that is mistake number two.

 

iii.

 

“This is a terrible, _terrible_ idea.”

Gendry is looking at her like she’s lost her mind, which in fairness she probably has. Arya can’t begrudge him his confusion – the whole thing is a bit of a mess, so he’s right to be staring at her like she’s just grown a second head. 

“A terrible idea, but a necessary evil.”

“It’s _ridiculous_. Your family will know we’re not dating.”

“My mum didn’t even question it.”

“And why didn’t you just correct her?”

“And break her heart?” Arya scoffs, dismissing the idea immediately. “Unlikely. My mum’s annoying, but I’m not a fucking monster.”

“But you _are_ , because you’re forcing me into a fake relationship with you! What about consent!”

“I’m not forcing, I’m _asking_.”

That, Arya thinks, is actually true. She won’t go along with the lie if Gendry is uncomfortable with it – she’d never put him through something like that. She’d just have to tell her mom that she misunderstood and deal with the awkwardness from there, which is far from ideal but better than making her best friend uncomfortable.

The thing is, though, that she doesn’t really know _why_ the idea is making him as uncomfortable as it clearly is. She’d found it a bit strange, sure, but Gendry isn’t horrible looking or anything and she does get along with him better than she gets along with anyone else. 

And when it comes to their family, he just… _fits_. He and Sansa get along famously and he plays football with Robb, and him and Bran always have some kind of book to talk about in between rounds of Overwatch with Rickon. He honestly just might fit in a little bit too well, so well that it’s a touch disconcerting (are they secretly related? Gods, she hopes not) but there are definitely worse people in the world that she could imagine being her fake boyfriend.

The idea doesn’t disgust her. Apparently she’s alone in that.

“It’s just…it’ll be weird after, won’t it? With your family, I mean.”

“ _Everything_ is weird with my family. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Weird because we’ll have to break up.”

Oh.

_Shit._

She hadn’t thought that far ahead, but now that Gendry mentions it Arya supposes that it’s not actually a terrible point.

“If you couple our mutual fear of commitment with our general lack of social skills, I feel like we have a pretty legit reason for a mutual, pleasant split.” Arya bats her eyes a little bit, trying to appear far more innocent than she actually feels – it’s a bit dirty, she thinks, trying to coerce her best friend into a fake relationship with her. “We were just better off as friends, you know?” 

He looks exhausted. He looks annoyed, and he looks incredibly fond, and that just makes Arya love him even more.

(Platonically, of course.)

“This is absurd.” In that, at least, he’s correct. “It’s completely fucking insane. No one in their right mind would ever agree to this.”

“Lucky for us that I’m asking you and not someone in their right mind, isn’t it?”

She’d never seen someone look at her with such vitriolic hatred before. An angry Gendry is the funniest kind of Gendry, mostly because she knows how much of a teddy bear he is on the inside – as angry as he’s pretending to be, Arya is sure that he’s going to give into her request in three, two…

“Nandos,” Gendry says, and it’s not at all the answer she’s expecting.

“What the fuck are you on about, Waters?”

“ _Nandos_ ,” he repeats, as if that’ll help her understand. “If I do this for you, the next ten Nandos visits are on you.”

“The next _five_.”

“Eight,” he counters, grinning at her as he does so. “Final offer.”

She can handle eight trips to Nandos. If Gendry does this for her, Arya’s pretty sure that she can handle absolutely anything.

“Deal.”

They shake hands, perhaps far more intensely than the situation requires, and there’s a weight in the air between them that feels far heavier than anything they’ve ever experienced before. It feels _significant_. It feels, honestly, a little bit ominous. Like she’s walking herself right into a den of lions.

They shake hands, and they seal her fate.

 

iv.

 

Sansa, apparently, is ecstatic.

“I _knew_ it,” she says, which is obviously bullshit considering that there’s nothing she could have known in the first place, but Arya can’t call her out on that. “Gods, watching the two of you make moon-eyes at each other for the past three years has been exhausting.”

“As exhausting as listening to you wax poetic about Jon’s curls since you were thirteen?” 

(No, Arya isn’t still bitter about Sansa stealing her best friend and making him her boyfriend.

Mostly.

Kind of.)

“Even more so.” She doesn’t like that look on Sansa’s face – it’s an entirely self-indulgent, pretentious little smirk, and Arya loves her sister desperately but she hates how fucking smug she looks right now. “I really think he’s good for you, Arya. And he clearly adores you; every time you leave the room he looks at you with this longing that’s like, something straight out of Romeo and Juliet.”

“We’re not actually dating, Sans.”

She doesn’t _mean_ to tell her, but someone needs to know. God knows her big sister can keep a secret better than anyone else in the family.

“Of course you’re not.” Sansa winks – actually _winks_ – and Arya has to stop herself from throwing a pillow at her face.

“Mum just got too enthusiastic, and I didn’t want to crush her hopes and dreams. You know how she gets.”

Sansa scoffs. “She’s already got a binder for mine and Jon’s wedding.”

“Exactly! So you _know_.”

Her sister is quiet for a moment, just long enough that Arya begins to doubt whether Sansa really trusts her at all, just long enough that her palms start to get a little bit sweaty and she has to wipe them off on her jeans.

“You should have just told her the truth. Lying isn’t going to help anyone.”

“It’ll help _mum_. I think she thinks I’m turning into a nun.” 

Catelyn, Arya knows, is just worried. She’s always worried, because she’s always doing everything in her power to make sure that her children are happy and it’s sweet, really, it means the world, but it also makes Arya want to gouge her own eyes out. She knows that Sansa will understand – she’s seen her sweet, mild-mannered sister nearly go off the deep-end when their mum’s prodding became too much.

If anyone understands, it’ll be Sansa. And if Sansa doesn’t understand, Arya will have to try and find a way to make her.

“Just make sure you don’t hurt him.”

Not the response she was expecting.

“Hurt who? _Gendry_? I don’t think he has the emotional depth for that, Sans.”

“I’m serious,” her sister snaps, and Arya can her in her tone that she actually, properly is. “Regardless of how you feel, just make sure that you’re keeping in mind how he feels too.”

“He feels fine with it, I promise. I’m paying him in Nandos.”

“I love you,” Sansa says, and Arya knows there’s a ‘ _but_ ’ coming, “but you’re about as perceptive as Robb.” 

“ _Bitch._ ”

“Brat.” 

Sansa smiles at her, but there’s a little bit of worry left over and – and she looks so much like their mom that it’s worrying, really, and it breaks her heard because she wishes beyond anything that her big sister hadn’t had to grow up so fast.

If anyone knows about heartbreak, and if anyone knows about hurt, it’s Sansa.

So maybe there’s a bit of merit to her words.

 _Maybe_.

But it hurts Arya’s head to think about, so she’s going to ignore it for as long as she possibly can. 

 

v.

 

Gendry looks good in a suit.

Gendry looks really, _really_ good in a suit.

She hadn’t prepared for this at all.

“You don’t look like shit,” she says, because Arya really can’t think of anything else to say that won’t make her sound like an idiot. “I mean, you look nice. Probably. From a purely objective, not-me point of view, you clean up pretty well.”

At least he’s not laughing at her – or he’s not laughing out _loud_ at her, and that’s really the best that she could hope for at this point in time. 

“So do you,” he says, and he’s smiling like the fucking sun. “Non-objectively speaking. From a me point of view, you look beautiful.”

She believes him when he says it.

 _Fucking hell,_ she believes him.

“Thanks,” she says, but saying thank you feels inadequate compared to what she’s actually feeling at the moment. “Margaery doesn’t have awful taste. I’m pretty sure this dress costs more than my laptop, because she said that she wanted her bridesmaids to look _couture_. It’s no wonder her and Sansa are so obsessed with one another.”

She’s rambling. Rambling is _not_ Arya’s style, but it’s also kind of the only thing that she can think to do at the moment. There’s a sort of fear that if she stops talking she’s going to blurt out what’s actually on her mind, and what’s actually on her mind is that Gendry…looks hot.

Really hot.

This is all, she thinks, Sansa’s fault.

(Everything usually is.)

“We should hold hands.”

His hand is already stretched out towards her, and it takes a moment for Arya to figure out what’s going on – that Gendry wants to hold hands, and he wants to hold hands with _her_ , and he’s acting as though it’s totally normal and something they do all the time instead of a complete and total fucking anomaly.

Her hands are sweaty. They’re so, _so_ fucking sweaty, and if she holds hands with Gendry he’ll probably notice how sweaty they are and never want to speak with her again. He’ll be horrified.

“For posterity’s sake,” Gendry amends, looking at least a little bit sheepish. “I am your boyfriend, after all.”

“Fake boyfriend.”

He winces, and Arya pretends that she doesn’t notice.

(For posterity’s sake.)

“Right, but we don’t want your mum to figure that out, do we?” He’s got a point, no matter how much Arya hates to admit it. “I think it might be a bit suspicious if we show up to our first event as a fake couple and don’t look anything like a real one.”

She glances at the church behind him, then back to Gendry, then to his outstretched hand, and back to the church again. It’s just a few minutes of acting as though they’re in love, and then she’ll have to stand up there and pretend to not be disgusted when Margaery starts crying, and everything will go right back to normal.

A few minutes. She can handle that.

“My hands are sweaty,” Arya warns, hoping at least somewhat that this might deter him.

“So are mine,” he says with a shrug, and –

Jesus Christ.

 _Fuck_.

She might – and it’s only might, it’s only the slightest possibility and there are plenty of other potential options to explore, but she might – she _might_ possibly, maybe, just a little bit be in love with her fake boyfriend.

This is problematic for a number of reasons.

Thank God for the fact that she doesn’t have time to dwell on them, because Gendry is holding her hand and dragging her inside the chapel, and they’ve got a wedding to attend. A wedding that just might, possibly, maybe end up killing her.

Sansa gives her a thumbs up when they walk into the church holding hands, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint not to throw her bouquet in the pretentious, beautiful bitch’s face.

 

vi.

 

Gendry keeps staring at her during the ceremony.

He keeps staring, and he keeps smiling.

Her father claps him on the shoulder, whispers something in his hear, and the smile that takes over Gendry’s face – it just might be the loveliest thing that Arya has ever seen.

Sam is officiating and he’s talking about _love_ and, holy shit, Arya actually understands what he means. He’s talking about love and Gendry keeps smiling at her, and all of Sam’s words are ringing a little too true for her liking.

Gendry smiles at her, and Arya smiles back.

She’s fucked.

Completely, totally fucked.

Margaery is crying. Sansa is crying. Her mother is crying. Robb is _weeping_ , the poor bastard, and Arya would love to make fun of him for it later on but then she feels the tell-tale prickle of tears behind her eyes and thinks that it might be in her best interests to keep her mouth shut. For the first time in her life, love actually looks like it might be something beautiful.

Gendry keeps smiling at her. He doesn’t even laugh when she wipes a tear or two away, and even though she knows he’ll give her shit for it during the reception it’s okay, Arya thinks, because right now he’s looking at her like she’s something special.

He was right: this was a terrible, terrible idea.

God knows she’s too far into it now.

 

vii.

 

“He can’t take his eyes off of you.” 

The smug look on Sansa’s face is driving Arya utterly insane. Her sister has this way of talking like she’s the smartest person in the whole fucking room, and – okay, she _is_ , but that doesn’t mean it’s not infuriating.

“He’s going to get the Academy bloody Award for this performance,” Arya mutters, taking a sip of her wine that’s probably far too large for polite company.

“Unless he’s not acting.” 

“He’s not in love with me, Sans.” 

“Has he told you that?”

Arya uses her silence as an answer – Sansa _knows_ he hasn’t told her that, of course she knows, and she hates the way her sister’s little smirk grows. She finishes her wine and signals the bartender for another (thank God for the Tyrell’s bottomless pockets and the open bar), hoping that the pleasant buzz of alcohol will help her suffer through the unbearable awkwardness of the evening. 

“I think you should talk to him,” Sansa says, and it might be the worst idea she’s ever had. “Let him answer that question for himself. You just might be pleasantly surprised.”

“What makes you think I _want_ him to be in love with me?”

It’s the wrong question to ask. Of course, of _course_ Sansa has an answer ready.

“Because you can’t take your eyes off of him either.”

 _Bitch_.

(She’s certainly not wrong.)

 

iix.

 

The reception is just like every other Tyrell party: a complete and utter shitshow.

Every member of the bridal party is trashed. Even her _dad_ is drunk, swinging her mum around in the most pathetic facsimile of a waltz that she’s ever seen, and it’d be horrifying if it wasn’t so fucking cute.

Or, Arya thinks, it’d be horrifying if she wasn’t also completely drunk off of her ass, but then that’s probably something that’s better left unsaid.

Her feet are aching. She’s incredibly thankful for Margaery’s foresight to put the bridesmaids in a dress with an empire waistline ( _yes_ , she’d actually listened at the dress fitting) because she’s eaten so much cake that she thinks she might be moments away from exploding but the only person who’s aware of her bloated stomach is herself. She’s tired, and the bride and groom are making out in the corner while Sansa and Jon disappeared _ages_ ago – gross – and at this point Arya can’t imagine a place in the world that she’d rather be.

It’s shocking. It’s confusing, but then the entire night has been one giant, confusing mess so that probably shouldn’t serve as much of a surprise. A little bit more vodka in her and any confusion will be wiped out by the pleasant buzz of pure intoxication.

Hopefully. She’s had a lot of wine at this point, and yet somehow her thoughts keep racing at a million miles a minute. She thinks love might have completely and totally broken her.

Gendry is _still_ fucking smiling at her.

“Can I help you?” she asks, and he says, “Dance with me,” and it’s really not the answer that she had expected.

“I don’t dance. You know that.”

“ _Bullshit_. I saw you dance on a table at The Wall last weekend.”

“I don’t slow dance,” she amends, and it feels like an important clarification. “I’ll look like an idiot.”

“You always look like an idiot,” he says, but he’s looking at her with fondness and with…something else, and it’s so intense that she has to tear her gaze away. “I’ll even let you lead.”

That shouldn’t be enough to make her give in, but it is.

 _Fuck_ , it really is.

“I can’t believe that worked,” she grumbles, and she grabs his hand to guide him into the middle of the dance floor. 

Arya doesn’t know the song that’s playing, although that’s expected – it sounds like something right off of one of Sansa’s playlist, but it’s not annoying her as much as it normally would. Gendry’s holding her far more gently than she thought he was capable of, and she wants to say that it’s uncomfortable but it’s kind of the happiest she’s been in forever, really.

His arms are around her, and his arms are _really_ nice. How had she never noticed them before? Or how had she never noticed that she was noticing him before? 

Gendry is right: she is an idiot.

But he hasn’t run away yet, so she’s going to count that as a win. 

“This is nice,” he says, and normally she would tease him for the way his voice quivers when he speaks but he’s right, Arya thinks, and he sounds so genuine, and she feels like she has to reciprocate. “This is really nice. You’re not anywhere near as shit a dancer as I thought you would be.”

“I’m good at everything,” she says, but she doesn’t sound nearly as cocky as she’d like to. “You should know that by now.”

“I do.” 

He _knows_.

He knows, and she loves him.

(The fucking asshole.)

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Slow dance with Robin Arryn, probably.” 

She snorts, burying her laughter into the crook of his shoulder, and Gendry’s hand flexes against the small of her back. It all feels very domestic, like something they’ve done a million times before and something they’ll do again, and it would be impossibly easy to lean up on her tip-toes and kiss him.

Arya won’t kiss him like this. Not for the first time – he deserves something better than being drunk and emotional at her brother’s wedding. 

“That’s disgusting.”

He twirls her, clearly all plans for her leading long abandoned, but Arya is surprisingly okay with it. “You love it.”

“I do,” she says, and she means it.

She means it, and so Arya thinks – _fuck it_. She’s never been the sort of person to do something by halves. 

“I love you.”

She doesn’t mean to say it. She really, _really_ doesn’t mean to, but she’d had three glasses of champagne with Sansa and two shots of vodka with Theon and she’s _small_ , okay, and that’s enough to make her say things that she doesn’t mean to. It’s enough to make Gendry look at her as though she’s lost her fucking mind.

That is not, she thinks, the way that someone is supposed to look at you after you’ve just professed your love for them. It’s the way that Arya had looked at Robb when he’d told her that he was proposing to his girlfriend after three months of dating. It’s the way that she looked at Bran when he’d told her that he and Meera were going to sell all of their possessions and backpack across South America.

It’s not a look of love. It’s not at _all_ the look that she was expecting it would be.

“Arya.” She loves the way he says her name – _Arya_ , like it’s something special. “Arya, you can’t say that.”

“But I did,” she says, a little bit drunk and a little bit confused. “I am.”

He’s shaking his head, and he’s taking a step back, and now she’s realizing that she might have made the biggest mistake of her life – she’ll kill Sansa when the night is done, as soon as she pulls her and Jon out of whatever closet they’re hiding in. She hadn’t wanted to love Gendry in the first place. She wanted to live her life in ignorant bliss, and then her sister had opened her big fucking mouth and ruined everything.

She shouldn’t have said it. She shouldn’t have, but she said it and now Gendry is looking at her like he doesn’t know her at all. The only person in the world who properly knows her, and he’s looking at her like she’s a stranger.

“That’s not fair,” he says,” and the two feet between them feels like a thousand miles. “You’re drunk, and you’re not thinking straight, and that’s _not_ fair.”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

Gendry runs his hand through his hair, beautiful and flustered, and she’s never seen him like this – she’s never seen him look so scared.

“You’re going to forget all about this tomorrow, and I’ll still be in love with you, and we’re going to have to do our fake breakup or whatever and I’m going to have to act like it’s not killing me, and _none_ of this is fair.” 

It’s not often in her life that Arya finds herself properly shocked, but this is one of those times. She’s never been great with her words in the first place but now…now she doesn’t even know what to say. She’s looking at Gendry and Gendry looks _scared_ , and angry, and everyone else is in their own little world of romance except for the two of them, sanding in the middle of the dance floor, and her heart is breaking. 

“But what if I didn’t forget about it?” He won’t even look at her, but she’s drunk and she’s feeling brave and _fuck_ it, she’s made it this far. What is there now that could stop her? “I’m drunk, but I’m not that drunk. When the fuck have I ever said something that I didn’t mean?”

“I can’t do this right now, Arya.”

“Gendry, you fucking _moron_ , get back here.”

Except it’s too late, because he’s shaking his head and he’s walking away – he’s leaving her, and she doesn’t know if there’s a way that she can make him stay.

So she doesn’t even try.

That is her third mistake.

 

ix.

The night ends with her head in a bucket, passed out on Sansa’s bed, her sister whispering sweet things in her ear.

She dreams about Gendry, and she only pukes five times.

(He doesn’t even text her once.)

 

x.

 

The next morning Robb and Margaery fly off to Cabo on a private jet, and Gendry arrives on their front doorstep with flowers.

She’s got half a mind to not let him in, to slam the door in his face and deadbolt it shut, but he’s also got a box full of doughnuts and she she’s so hungover and so God damn _hungry_ that she can’t even imagine turning him away.

Also, she loves him.

(Rather inconvenient, that.) 

“You’re a fucking idiot,” she says, and she means it.

“An idiot that you’re in love with,” he counters.

As far as rebuttals go, it’s a pretty good one. But Arya is hungover and she’s still a little bit (a lot) pissed off at him, so she’s not going to let him win her over that easily. At least, she won’t let him _see_ that he’s won her over.

“You should have texted first.”

“Would you have answered?”

They both know that the answer is a resounding and absolute _no_. The bastard.

“I hate flowers,” she says, because she can’t think of anything else.

“You literally ranted to me for an hour last week about how your love for roses doesn’t make you any less of – and I quote – ‘ _a badass bitch_ ’. You have a tattoo of a rose on your shoulder. I was with you when you got it.”

He’s right.

She _hates_ it when he’s right.

“I’m not going to let you in.”

“I’m not expecting you to.”

“You humiliated me, you prick.”

There are very few people that Arya will allow herself to look weak in front of. She’ll look weak in front of Jon, because Jon is Jon and that’s kind of the only explanation that she thinks she needs. She’ll look weak in front of Sansa, because Sansa is the only person who knows exactly what to say in order to calm her down, and she’s seen her older sister cry enough times that she feels as though a little reciprocity is important. 

She doesn’t like looking weak in front of Gendry. She doesn’t like the way that she has to angrily wipe the tears from the corner of her eyes, but they’re dead in the middle of it now and there really doesn’t seem to be any sort of going back. 

“I know,” he says, and she’s thankful that he’s at least acknowledging his mistake. “I know I did, and I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am. I’m a fucking idiot.” 

That’s something that she’s not going to argue with.

“I told you this was a terrible idea.”

“You don’t have to rub it in. _Jesus_ , Gendry, I –” 

“I told you that it was a terrible idea,” he says, cutting off the litany of swears that she has prepared for him, “because I’ve been in love with you since the moment we met, and having to pretend to be your boyfriend felt like I was walking out right into a minefield. It was a fucking terrible idea, but I said yes because I love you, and I thought I could be cool about it, and then you were telling me that you loved me and it just felt like a cruel fucking joke. You know?”

She doesn’t know.

“I’ve got,” Arya says, voice surprisingly steady, “no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

“I didn’t think you meant it.” Gendry’s sigh is long-suffering, dramatic and exactly like him, and it makes her love him more. “I thought you were just saying it because of the wine and the shots and the slow dance and whatever, and it _hurt_. But then your mum found me –” 

“You should know by now to never listen to anything my mum says.” 

“She found me,” he continues, glaring at her slightly, “and she told me all about how you never shut up about me.”

“Rude, and also untrue.” 

“She told me about how happy you looked when you told her we were going together, and how my name comes up at dinner like, six times a night.” 

“Only because I’m telling stories about what an idiot you are.”

“And she told me that you look at me like she looks at your father,” he adds, and Arya’s heart melts a little bit at the thought of her mum, her beautiful, love-struck mum, comparing her and Gendry to the only marriage that made her feel as though love might actually exist. “Then I realized that she’s right, and that I’m a fucking idiot. But by that point you were throwing up in the ladies room, and I figured it’d be better to wait until the morning.”

It’s a very convoluted mess. It’s the plot of every shitty romance movie ever made, and Arya hates herself for falling into it – she hates herself for being swayed this easily.

Gendry is still clutching the roses to his chest as though they’re his lifeline, and she looks at him, at the nervous way his brows are furrowing together, and thinks that she might love him more than she’s ever loved anyone. 

“You’re _such_ a fucking idiot.”

“An idiot that you’re in love with?” he says for a second time, but this time it’s a little more questioning and a little more hopeful, and Arya can’t help but smile in response to his own.

“I don’t know. The hangover’s got my brain all clouded up.”

He takes a step forward, and she’s still not letting him in but she thinks that, with a little bit of convincing, she might reconsider her stance. “Anything I can do to help?”

“You can kiss me,” she says, laughing just a little at the shock on his face. “That’d be a start.”

For once in his God-forsaken life, Gendry Waters actually listens to her.

He kisses her, and he kisses her like he loves her.

(And this, Arya thinks, was a _brilliant_ fucking idea after all.)


End file.
